YHWH -- The Divine Name

Temple Ostraca Click to enlarge	Two words are used as names or titles for God far in excess of all others combined: 'elohim (some 2250+ times in BHS) and yhwh (some 5500+ times). These include the 800+ times they happen in combination. They are not simply synonyms. 'elohim is a noun, the plural of eloah (= "god"; itself used 57x, all but 16 of which are in Job). As a singular, it is simply a noun, equivalent to "a divine being". But as a plural, it has been understood in Rabbinic Judaism and Apostolic Christianity to be the majestic title for the one god of Israel, something of a royal "we". It takes the singular verb, except in a very few ambiguous cases (such as Gen 31:53). It is the word we translate as "God". yhwh on the other hand, is clearly a personal name in the texts. It is first introduced in Genesis 2:4, and is the name by which God is referenced throughout the J narrative. In Genesis 4:26 (in the J story), it is said, "At that time people began to call on the name of yhwh." In E, on the other hand, the name yhwh is never used until Exodus 3:14-15 when God gives Moses the name by which he is to announce the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves. In the Masoretic text, yhwh is pointed: This is unpronounceable, and was intended to be so. Whereas the characters inside the BHS use the name on an incredibly frequent basis, and so must have known its actual pronunciation, the rabbis after 70 C.E. believed the injunction "Thou shalt not take the name of yhwh your God in vain" was best fulfilled if the name were NEVER spoken. It was believed that the high priest of Israel would speak the name in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur for the forgiveness of Israel, but with the fall of the Temple, that was no longer possible.
Temple priest	The divine name (called the Tetragrammaton, or "Four Letters") has always been understood to contain fearsome power. The misuse of the name could bring destruction on its speaker and others, so the rabbis who pointed the Hebrew Bible were following the believed that where yhwh was seen, 'adonai (itself a majestic plural of 'adon, with a 1st person suffix: ="my Lord") was spoken. The vowels of yahweh are actually the vowels of 'adonai. The narrative of Exodus 3:14-15 demonstrates that the writers of the 9th century B.C.E. saw the divine name as derived from hayah -- "to be". Without the original vowels, we can't be absolutely certain of the exact pronunciation or the exact meaning. However, both Christian biblical scholarship and the Jewish mystic tradition (which secretly pronounced the name throughout Jewish history in spite of the restriction of the rabbis) agree that it was and is likely "Yahweh" or "Yahveh"). This would make it a causative verb form, with the meaning "he causes to be" or "he will cause to be" -- fitting for the announcement to Pharoah. Finally, the combination of 'elohim and yhwh needs to be addressed. It is possible that 'elohim functions as a title and yhwh as a personal name -- much the way the words "King David" go together. It is also possible that yhwh 'elohim is a construct relationship, and that (for the J writer, at least) it clarifies who yhwh is: YHWH of the (council of the) gods. This would explain why the phrase is used in Genesis 2 and 3, but never combined again in this way by J. Still, the two words are put together hundreds of times in a slightly different way. The word 'elohim very often carries a suffix: eloheyka, for instance, = "your God". In such cases, yhwh 'eloheyka> is "YHWH your god". In the Shema, the two function as a nominal clause: "YHWH [is] your god."